Proximity to Balance
by Mendeia
Summary: A series of oneshots of moments, laughter, adventures, and sometimes the lack thereof that defines life for five once-pilots in the days and weeks and years that follow their story. No real spoilers, and no real plot - just snapshots for all five about equally. Rated for cannon-consistent violence just in case.
1. Morning Madness

I decided after the epic crossover that I wasn't nearly satisfied with all the possibilities of this universe. So I kept going. I've got a bunch of these little oneshots, more than a dozen, and I'm just going to post one a week until I run out or I finish my next crossover. There's no particular warnings or spoilers, just moments and speculation into the world.

Note that on AO3 I'm listing these as separate works rather than chapters because it lets me do that. Same difference, really, but I like the other format a bit more for elegance. I'm such a nerd.

Enjoy!

* * *

"Gooooooood morning campers!"

"This is possibly the _worst_ idea I have ever had," Heero grumbled, using every bit of his self-control to not locate the source of the noise and shoot it to pieces. "I had no idea Quatre could be so cruel."

"It's a bright oh-four-hundred here on L4," the voice practically giggled, "and time for all sleeping ickle-bitty bunnies to rise and shine! I'm your Morning Bringer of Cheer and I'll be here until you are!"

Heero snorted but sat up. He could just barely make out the tiniest of noises through the thick wall that divided his room from the next, where he guessed Chang Wufei was bellowing his displeasure. Not at the wake-up call; they'd asked for that, after all. Although every one of the former Gundam pilots had attuned their internal chronometers to absolute precision, they had also learned that they slept better when they did not have to go to the trouble; in a place they could truly allow themselves to rest, guards down, they wanted as much depth of sleep as they could get. It wasn't that they were being woken early that was causing such outrage.

It was that call being delivered by a so-very-awake-and-chipper Duo via the internal PA system.

"Breakfast is already piping hot and waiting for you three lazybones to join us," Duo continued to shout gleefully. "The sooner you get here, the sooner I'll shut up!"

That was motivation enough for Heero to dress with speed and gear up for today's mission. It was a relatively low-key affair, all things considered, but any mission that called for the full team of five former pilots required at least two guns per person and four extra clips minimum. Plus the usual load, of course.

"Quatre must be the one already up," Heero mused to himself, checking his third gun. "He would be the one to give Duo access to the system, of course."

Stepping out into the hallway, he was met with the absolutely livid red face of Wufei, who looked as pristine and put-together as always, but had added a scowl that could wilt houseplants.

"If that idiot doesn't stop his noise, I'm going to introduce him to a form of Chinese torture he's never even heard of," he promised darkly.

"Boys! Boys! You're so slow! I'm already on my fifth coffee of the day! I'm starting to feel lllloooonnnneelllyyyy," Duo's voice half-sang, half-howled.

"Five coffees?" Heero raised an eyebrow. "Quatre would never let him…"

"You're right. I didn't."

Wufei and Heero turned to see Quatre, his face carefully blank, standing before them. He, too, wore a full Preventers uniform, complete with his own arsenal. A stray clump of blond hair sticking out to the side was the only indication he was less than perfectly awake and collected.

"Are you telling me we have _Barton_ to thank for this incessant litany of inane chatter?" Wufei demanded.

"Well, it wasn't my idea. I almost wish it was," and here Quatre's neutral mask slipped slightly, but enough for those who knew him best to see that he was highly amused and only just keeping himself under control to avoid irritating his teammates. "My wake-up call would have been your phones ringing."

"I'm going to build you a new password system," Heero decided, "because obviously you need it if this is the result of Duo's tampering."

"Wake up, my darlings! Wake up and smell the breakfast! _Breeaaaackfaaaasssst_. Oh, and Cat, sorry about that platter. I totally didn't notice it was there when I sat down! I hope it wasn't too expensive!"

"Allah preserve us," Quatre buried his face in his hands, trying to keep his shoulders from shaking with laughter.

"He'd better, because nothing else will save that moron from me," Wufei threatened, turning to move down the hallway towards the breakfast room.

Quatre and Heero exchanged glances and hurried after him. This was one of Quatre's "real" houses, not the temporary safehouses the five used between missions when they were undercover or just being cautious. The ornately gilded frames that held oil paintings shone even in the artificial lights, and the stately men and women from ages past looked down their noses at the three young men rushing by.

"You guys are so slow! Come on, babes! Move it!"

"Did he just call us 'babes,' or did I imagine it?" Heero glanced to Quatre who nodded.

"Hey Wu-Wu-Wubber bubber flubber! I miss you soooooooooo!"

Wufei threw open the door to the breakfast room a few steps ahead of Heero and Quatre, near to roaring inarticulately. The table was spread before them with a luxurious set of breakfast choices, from hot and cold cereal to eggs and meats and rice and greens and even a roasted chicken. At one end of the room, Duo held a microphone that was hooked to his laptop and was dancing with it to his own unique beat. The edge of the table nearest him showed evidence of some very large, heavily-laden platter having been violently upended and shattered, its contents strewn absolutely everywhere.

Across from Duo sat Trowa, who was laughing silently, his eyes streaming tears of mirth.

"MAXWELL!"

Wufei charged the braided ex-pilot, but was brought up short by something suddenly in front of his nose. Only his ridiculously sharp reflexes kept him from careening into it.

"Trowa made it for you," Duo said, so saccharinely sweetly it was near disgusting. "He didn't let me touch it at all."

"The only thing," Wufei was practically vibrating, "that could have saved you from me was this." He took the offered teacup delicately, as though it were a butterfly. "Next time I shall not show mercy."

"Of course not, babe!"

Heero and Quatre exchanged glances and managed to get to the table without Wufei seeing them struggling to control their expressions. Duo winked at them, and Trowa managed to clear his throat and pretend as if he hadn't been laughing himself silly. Wufei sank into a chair and breathed the warm aroma as a man inhales the scent of food after starvation.

All heroes have weaknesses. The fact that Chang Wufei's rage can be tamed by tea is used regularly against him by his friends.


	2. Dreams and Nightmares

Just a short one this week, I'm afraid. Some of these are briefer than others. Sorry about that.

Enjoy!

* * *

By the time the five young men who had once piloted Gundams had relinquished their illusion that they were at home anywhere but with one another, taking up Quatre's offer at last to stay with him and forge an oddly compatible family, they had spent many nights together on missions or visits, and it was an open secret that every one of them suffered from nightmares sometimes. They never talked about it because what was there to say? These weren't phantoms of the imagination – these were the images burned in their minds from years of horrific experience.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. It could be right after a mission, weeks since anything more exciting than a papercut, or hours after a truly relaxing afternoon. If there had been a pattern, they might have handled it better.

They ignored the nightmares until they couldn't anymore.

Living in such close proximity, each one of them having trained himself to wake at the slightest sound, no one could pretend they weren't pulled out of sleep when someone crashed back to reality from flame and fear. For weeks, they fell into a habit of listening and doing nothing. Whoever had woken, be it screaming or gasping, crying or frozen, would do whatever was needed to quiet himself and, if not return to sleep, at least pretend to close his eyes until dawn. The other four, all aware, unable to ignore it, would wait and listen until silence fell once more. Often, all five would remain awake together, separated by bedroom doors and too many layers of pain and history.

But one night, something changed.

It was Trowa who bolted upright, fighting the urge to shout and reach for his gun, for he, like the others, kept a weapon within reach at all times – they couldn't not. He ran a shaking hand over his face, but knew, knew without even having to consider it, that he would never get back to sleep. The room was too dark, too close, to empty. He was vulnerable, half trapped in memories of isolation and loss.

So he actually got out of bed and padded down the hall to the nearby lounge.

Just the sight of finding himself in Quatre's L5 townhome, of the stack of Duo's you-have-got-to-watch-this vids and Wufei's fourth spare katana-cleaning cloth on the table, of Quatre's laptop bag and sheaf of papers, of Heero's military-neat shoes lined near the door – it comforted him. It all meant that his dreams were his past, not his present, not necessarily his future. It all meant he was not alone in the night, even as the others had not been alone when he had listened to them struggle with their memories.

It was hours until dawn, but Trowa sat down on one of the soft chairs and reached for his own bag hidden in the shadows anyway. He drew forth a tablet of paper and began to sketch idly, allowing his fingers and his charcoal to draw out the lingering tension in his mind. He didn't care what he produced as long as it brought him calm.

A few minutes later, a sudden noise would have put him on his guard except Trowa knew that sound now as well as he knew his own footfalls. Heero stepped into the room, fully dressed, face unreadable.

They looked at one another for a long time, saying nothing. Then Heero shrugged and moved to the couch, pulling up his own laptop wordlessly. Trowa hadn't asked for company and Heero hadn't offered. They were just being there together. Almost as if it were totally coincidence.

But it wasn't.

From that night on, when one of the five was plagued by nightmares, by unspoken, unarranged agreement, he would spend the last hours of the night not alone or in doubt, but with someone who understood at his side, just being there. They never talked about it, because there was still nothing to say. But it wasn't charity or weakness or failure. It wasn't even strategy, ensuring that if two must be awake, three might know that everything would be all right and could let themselves sleep for the benefit of all the next day.

It was strength, the strength of five who could endure where one alone could not.

They could not stop the nightmares. But they could see each other through until dawn. And it was enough.


	3. Music Thursdays

Meant to get this up yesterday – sorry! Also, it's amazing what you can learn about a very common song from Wikipedia, including additional (and helpful) extra verses.

Enjoy!

* * *

It was, as most things were, mainly Duo's fault.

But not in the usual way things that were Duo's fault were his fault per se. The time the blender on L2 got clogged after an ill-advised incident involving motor oil and everything they put in it afterwards came out as a certain amount of grey sludge – that was Duo's fault. The mix-up of toiletries that left Wufei with a thick green streak in the hair at his temple – that was definitely Duo's fault and it probably wasn't an accident.

No, this time it was something else entirely.

Although Quatre could have afforded a full complement of servants, chefs, butlers, laundresses, and the like to follow the five of them around as they moved throughout the Earth Sphere on missions, mostly the five pilots preferred to act for themselves (not to mention that a corp of servants would stick out like a Gundam in the back-streets and shadowy neighborhoods where they made their safehouses). So they eschewed Quatre's lavish homes rather often and instead took up temporary residence in smaller apartments and crash-houses and did their own cleaning and laundry and such in turns.

This particular Thursday, it was Duo's night to serve as master cook, so he was standing alone in the kitchen chopping vegetables for a quick stir fry. As he would have said himself, Duo could hardly be responsible for keeping track of what-all his brain was doing at any given point in time, and didn't realize at first that he was singing an old song he'd learned from the Maxwell Church.

"'_Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free,  
_'_Tis a gift to come down where you ought to be._"

He'd been through it several times without realizing until, as he moved into the next line, a soft tenor voice rose up in counterpoint.

"_And when we find ourselves in the place just right,  
_'_Twill be in the valley of love and delight._"

Duo whirled in place to see Quatre smiling gently. The blond winked and nodded, and the L2 orphan realized how odd and wonderful it was for the two of them, prince and pauper, to both understand the song so well.

"_When true simplicity is gained  
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.  
To turn, turn 'twill be our delight  
_'_Til by turning, turning we come 'round right._"

They began the song again, Quatre shifting his harmony slightly and beginning to chop the carrots Duo had just finished washing. They moved around one another in the small kitchen, cooking and singing softly until another sound joined them.

It was Trowa, with a little harmonica.

By the time Wufei and Heero came to see what was happening with dinner, the three of them had added so many layers of overtones and runs and trills, with Duo stubbornly singing the melody in its unvarnished fashion, that the song was completely new and not at all simple anymore. They stopped when they realized the food was actually finished and joined the other two without even a little shame – what was there to be embarrassed about in front of people who had seen them do so much worse?

But a week later, when it was Heero's turn to fold laundry, he found himself accompanied by the trio. And the week after that, when Wufei was cleaning the weaponry, they sat across from him, continuing it. They sometimes tried other songs, but somehow the same one found its way back into a harmony or a transition. Duo even used it as a signal pulse to confirm that all was well when his communicator was damaged.

So when they returned to L4 and took a few days at Quatre's largest house, Thursday afternoon saw all five in the conservatory. Quatre took up his beloved violin, Trowa opted for the flute again, and Wufei, to everyone's surprise, settled himself at the piano. Heero, it turned out, had never learned anything musical at all, so Duo began teaching him to keep a beat on a hand-drum. For an hour, they weren't killers and ex-terrorists and Preventers agents. They were five young men relearning the simple things.

"_'Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,  
'Tis the gift to think of others, not to only think of 'me,'  
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,  
Then we'll all live together with a love that is real._"


	4. Normalcy

Just something short and cute for this week.

Enjoy!

* * *

The problem of being highly-elite combat veterans with more than a few unusual behavioral habits is that average, common things in the world become far more complicated than anything devised by a Preventers mission. Shopping was particularly difficult for the Gundam team, not because of a lack of money (between the Preventers stipend and the fact that Quatre had more money than a few colonies they could name), but because of the unpredictable nature of it.

"Zero One to Zero Four."

"Zero Four receiving."

"Mission parameters specify black, but the only supplies matching other specs are white. Is white acceptable?"

"White is acceptable, Zero One."

"Confirmed. Mission parameters adjusted to include white. Zero One out."

People looked at them like they were _nuts_. And, admittedly, there was something more than strange in the one-sided conversation held via cell in the department store while a young man with brown hair and intimidatingly blue eyes picked out pairs of socks.

At first, especially for those of the ex-Gundam pilots who had been more heavily indoctrinated in the ways of the military, they had plotted even simple errands as if they were missions. If they realized they did it as a way of acclimating back to a world in which they were not always on call, always on guard, always pretending to be two and three different personas, they didn't mention it.

Over time, however, it became a game.

"Zero Two to Zero Five."

"Go ahead, Zero Two."

"The briefing clearly stated Korean long-grain rice. None is available. Please advise."

"Zero Five to Zero One, over."

"Zero One receiving you, Zero Five."

"Zero Two reports a _situation_ in the rice aisle."

"Understood. Zero One to intercept in approximately 45 seconds."

"Acknowledged. Zero Five to Zero Two."

"Zero Two in. Mission failure is inevitable unless rice supplies are acquired. Please advise."

"Zero One is on his way to your location for tactical support."

"Roger that, Zero Five. Zero Two out."

They said it with perfectly straight faces and barked their commands as if still piloting mobile suits, but inside they were giggling like little children. By making something that wasn't supposed to be serious all too serious, they reduced it to something easy, something they could handle.

It was the Gundam way to whistle in the dark, as it were. And it worked.

But they could never go back to the hardware store where they'd had a five-way, 20-minute emergency, code-red-level scramble to acquire their items and extricate themselves before Zero Three inadvertently purchased a pallet of rubber mallets from an extremely pushy salesman. It was only Quatre's ability to talk fast, Wufei's seriousness, and Duo's jokes that kept them from making the evening news.


	5. How A Pair of Scissors Saved L4

I have no idea where this one came from. It just seemed like something worth writing down.

Enjoy!

* * *

It should have been an easy bust, well beneath the skills of two former pilots, let alone the team of four. Quatre was sitting it out because he'd been away from WEI too long, so he had arranged to meet the others for lunch after the mission ended. It was just a quick arrest of a small-time dealer who had taken to building incendiary devices which he was willing to sell to those who could provide their own explosive materials. He was operating out of the back of an electronics store in the financial district, and by all accounts was a weaselly man of no courage, so they estimated that, even if everything went wrong, the case would be wrapped up and the man in Preventers custody long before noon.

Unfortunately, their intelligence did not anticipate the surprise visit by one of the top outstanding terrorists on the Preventers watch list, who came in unexpectedly looking for a replacement ignition for the bomb he had intended to plant in the environmental controls station for L4 that very afternoon.

"Zero Three, shut him down!" Heero ordered, dodging the automatic gunfire provided by the wanted terrorist's backup squad.

"He's busy! That little jerk hit him in the eyes with something!"

"Then you get him, Zero Two!"

"I'm…trying!" Duo grunted, wrapping one thug in a sleeper hold and putting him down fast.

"Zero Five! Where are you?"

"Tailing this coward!" Wufei yelled back over the open frequency. By the sound of wind whipping across the line, Wufei was either flat-out running or on some kind of motorbike in pursuit of the terrorist mastermind who had eluded them while his men covered his escape, detonator in his pocket.

It took another two minutes (unacceptable timing – they would be due for a new training regimen after this debacle) to subdue the terrorist's men and the errant shopkeeper who was spraying everybody in the eyes with some kind of copper adhesive. By the time Heero, Duo, and Trowa finally got the situation secured and took off after Wufei, Preventers had been alerted to the very real danger. But they were scrambling from a different colony in the L4 cluster and would be precious minutes behind.

Meanwhile, Wufei had absconded with a convenient scooter and was on the tail of the getaway car, which he now knew was loaded with enough explosives to take out half the district. He wasn't falling too far behind, but he would never catch up on this wimpy piece of vehicular technology. He knew his team was hopelessly delayed, so he called in the only trump he had left.

"Zero Five to Zero Four. Emergency. Come in, Zero Four."

Quatre wasn't picking up the signal, in spite of the fact that it should have rattled his phone enough to be heard even if he'd silenced it, turned it off, and left it in a bag; the emergency channel overrode just about anything. Wufei swore in fluent Mandarin, then Cantonese, then, with a thought to his team, switched to an obscure dialect they might not bother to translate over the open line.

"We're tracking your location, Zero Five," came Heero's measured tone, "but we're somewhat behind you."

"Not sure we'll make it in time," put in Zero Two, his words tight with apprehension.

Wufei rounded the corner with a screech of tires and the blasted scooter spun wildly, throwing off a wheel as it did so. Wufei came up rolling, gun in hand. It was a busy street in the middle of the day, but all he could do was shoot and hope to disable the vanishing car before it was too late. If it got away from him now, he might not be able to track it before the terrorist detonated his load.

Then, abruptly, the car swerved before he'd even gotten the first shot off.

"How...?" he started to run, watching as the car came to a complete halt after spinning wildly a few times across the lanes of the road. He reached it just in time to see the back door swing open and the terrorist himself, splattered with blood, climb out.

Wufei never even gave him a chance, hitting the man from behind with all his strength and taking him down in a brutal tackle. The terrorist would wake up with a concussion, a head lesion, and if he was smart, a prayer of gratitude that Wufei hadn't sliced him in two. Only after ensuring the man was out cold and in restraints did the Preventers agent look around to the front of the car.

The driver was dead, something having made an awful mess of his face that apparently struck him through the windshield. It glinted with a slightly silvery sheen.

"Sorry I'm late," came an utterly calm voice. Wufei whirled in place to see Quatre, hands in his pockets, looking completely collected and professional in his dark-colored business suit.

"What…how…?" was all Wufei managed as Quatre's predatory grin emerged from the folds of his 'oh nothing to see here – I'm just a passerby' face.

"You can hardly expect to chase criminals in front of my own building without my taking an interest," he shrugged. Wufei looked up to realize the corner he had just rounded was the one on which WEI's headquarters stood.

"But…" he didn't say aloud that he knew for a fact Quatre hadn't had a silencer on him today and he'd heard no shots. People were starting to gather, and that was a rumor nobody needed to have spread. All five former Gundam pilots went to good lengths to keep the Winner heir from ever being associated with Agent Zero Four.

"I'm very pleased to have witnessed your fine work in apprehending the suspect, agent," Quatre continued blithely, putting on an excellent show for the gathering crowd. A moment later, the van roared up and the rest of the team jumped out. To their credit, they noticed Quatre working the crowd and treated him like a stranger, hustling him back to the curb with the other onlookers.

"What have we got?" Duo asked, not even winking at his best friend as he turned back to the car.

"It appears they met with a very unfortunate accident," Heero said solemnly. "Look." At his gesture, the other three agents bent so they could see under the hood of the ruined sedan.

Embedded in the driver-side tire was what could only be a stout pair of scissors, sunk to the handle in the deflated rubber, and the obvious cause of the car's sudden swerve.

Trowa raised one eyebrow and looked more closely at the driver's body. Another roundish grip of a pair of scissors was almost visible in the tattered remains of the man's face.

"Killer office supplies," Duo couldn't help but quip.

"Looks like someone has been practicing their knife-throwing," Trowa commented lightly. "Their teacher would be proud."

And nobody but those who knew to look for it spotted Quatre's ears get pink at the compliment while the rest of Une's Preventers finally arrived on the scene, too late as usual.


	6. Family

A slightly more serious one for you this time. It's something that I don't think has been looked at before with the cannon, so it was definitely worth the doing. And I do love it when Trowa shakes off his more common quiet and speaks from the heart.

Enjoy!

* * *

In the end, it was no real surprise that Cathy half-adopted all five of the ex-Gundam pilots, even if it did take her a while to get there.

Being Trowa's sister naturally led to her regular interactions with the other four, not only when Trowa came to visit her, but when she unexpectedly popped in to "surprise" him. One of the first times she did so, however, the pilots demanded to know exactly how she had found them, given that they were operating in the L2 slums and trying _very_ hard not to be noticed before a mission.

"Simple," she'd told them. "I asked Sally."

At which point Wufei wasted no time calling up said Preventers agent and lecturing her quite forcefully about the secrecy of their location, the security risks posed by giving out their information to civilians, the possibility for capture and betrayal, etc. She simply laughed at him and cut the call. Repeated attempts to vent at her were ignored.

So Trowa began keeping Cathy informed as to when they would _not_ be on a mission or in hiding somewhere, enabling her to visit at more opportune times. Cathy remembered Heero from when Trowa had nursed him back to health, and had no qualms about reminding the stoic Japanese soldier to eat regularly, relax sometimes, and laugh. She was utterly nonplussed by Wufei's disdain of her sisterly advances, and soon enough a stern glare from her was enough to cut him off mid-rant. Duo absolutely, hands-down, _adored_ Cathy, doubly so when she would tell funny stories about the circus family, and they got along like a house on fire with twice the chaos, plus all the knives.

It was Quatre Cathy struggled with the most, simply because she blamed him more than anyone else for Trowa's near-death (which was fair in Quatre's mind) and Trowa's subsequent return to the battlefield (somewhat less fair but the blond couldn't really argue with her on it). Several months of visits did not seem to endear him to her at all. Quatre accepted her coldness with a sort of resigned sadness and politely did not ask her for more than she was willing to give.

Cathy's blame of Quatre did not sit at all well with Trowa, however.

"Can we talk?" he asked her one night when she had been invited over ostensibly for a visit but in reality because, in his mind, things had gone too far. The last time the five had seen her, she had "forgotten" Quatre's allergy to almonds and baked an almond cake for dessert. If not for Heero's speed and sharp sense of smell, Quatre might have been out of commission for the next day's work.

It could have been an accident, and Trowa knew for a fact that even in a rage Cathy would never intentionally hurt anyone, nor was Quatre's allergy so severe he had been in true danger. But it was enough.

"What's on your mind?" Cathy noticed at once that she and Trowa were alone, and given that this was a miniscule two-bedroom apartment, that was no small feat. The others had made themselves scarce, going out to resupply before the mission. At least, that's what they had used as an excuse.

"You shouldn't be mad at Quatre," Trowa told her, folding his arms.

"I'm not." Her response was so quick it was almost reflexive.

"Yes you are. You blame him for me getting hurt and then going back to the fighting. And you shouldn't. Neither were his fault."

"You told me yourself he tried to kill you," she returned angrily. "How is that not his fault?"

"You know I can't tell you everything about what happened," Trowa said evenly, "but I'll say this much. What made Quatre shoot me down also made _me_ almost destroy a whole colony. While you were on it. Quatre's actually the one who prevented me from massacring you and thousands of other people. And that wasn't my fault, either. It's just…something that happened to us."

"Trowa…" Cathy breathed.

"Look," he sat beside her, meeting her pale eyes calmly, "we all did things we're not proud of during the war. We were all lost at one point, and we all made horrible mistakes. We have to live with those every single day. Quatre is no worse than the rest of us. You've forgiven everyone but him. And I get it," he reached out to cup her chin as she started to look away from his gaze, "I really do. You worry about me."

"Always," she said. "You're my brother, Trowa. In every way that counts."

"Then so is Quatre."

That surprised her. "I…don't really know how to respond to that. Why do you—?"

"Quatre has saved my life several times. And more importantly, he and the others save me every day from everything that happened before we had each other. Quatre would kill for me and he would die for me, and I would do the same for him. We all would. You can't take four of us and leave out one. You'll lose all of us. I don't know what we are, but we're more than family."

"Trowa, I don't…" she tried again.

"Not long before you and I met, I didn't even have a name. Then you gave me the first home I'd ever had. The war gave me a purpose. But it's what happened at the end of the war, when the five of us came together to fight for peace, that I finally found _myself_. Because I could see my reflection in them."

Trowa stood up again and looked out the window. Cathy waited quietly – she knew that when his customary silence gave way he would speak until his thoughts had run their course. Getting Trowa to say more than a few words at a time was always a struggle, so when he did voluntarily, she cherished them.

Even when, as now, they were hard to hear.

"Quatre has a bunch of sisters, you know. Sisters who care about him and sisters who don't and sisters he's never even met. But he doesn't have any that understand. I know you don't really understand either, but I'm lucky enough that you are willing to try anyway. It means a lot, Cathy. To have survived the war and have you to come back to, it means everything I was fighting for and everything I did was worth it."

He turned back to her, his face set and his chin firm. "But you can't give me that if I can't share it with Quatre as well as the others. It isn't fair. Quatre bled and cried for this war, too. He's half the reason we won. I owe him my life and I owe him my soul."

"Trowa, what are you saying?" Cathy stood, her stomach cold.

"I love you, Cathy," he said, but there was no warmth in his voice. "You're the only sister I'll ever have. But if you can't be a sister to Quatre too, you can't be here anymore. I will never turn my back on you, but I won't turn my back on him, either. If you want me and Heero and Wufei and Duo, you have to take Quatre too. All of us or none of us. It's up to you."

Catherine Bloom had never in her life been a run-away-from-your-problems kind of person, but that courage failed her for once and she fled Trowa's burning gaze without another word. She practically ran all the way back to the circus, not stopping until she reached her tent, where she realized for the first time that her face was wet with tears.

In the morning, she woke to the delivery of a dozen white roses and a small card.

"_Please forgive Trowa. He needs you to be his sister. I don't care about anything else and I don't blame you for anything. Quatre._"

The flowers died after a few days, but Cathy kept the card affixed to her mirror, glancing at it at least once every day. She could not have reached out to her brother even if she had wanted to (and she didn't yet), as she knew they were just starting a long, difficult mission. It gave her some much-needed time to think.

But when, three months later, she received word that Trowa could meet her for dinner – but only Trowa – she was ready. She joined him at a restaurant she had a feeling he would not have bothered to afford on his Preventers salary, and she had a pretty good idea who might be behind Trowa's obvious effort to reconnect with her. But they both avoided the topic and tried to catch up as though things were normal.

At the end of the meal, Cathy reached into her purse to pull out a small envelope. She handed it over as she kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye. "Call me when you get back to L3," she said as she walked away.

Inside the envelope was a letter that read simply:

"_Thank you for being a friend to my brother, Quatre. I hear you have many lovely sisters to whom you are related by blood but Trowa has taught me that blood is not the only thing that matters. Nobody has so many sisters they cannot find room for one more. I will see you on L3 with the others._"

And so she did.


	7. A Heart Fulfilled

Sorry for the lack of a post last weekend. It was my annual major weekend of choir concert-ness which results in 3 days of 14-hour whirlwinds of volunteering, setup, take-down, and singing in the actual concert. And then there's two days of sleeping. Here's a nice one to make up for it.

Also, there's _no way_ this didn't happen, you guys. I'm just sayin'.

Enjoy!

* * *

If there is something more to be feared than Duo Maxwell with an Idea, it is Duo Maxwell with an Idea and Quatre Raberba Winner determined to make it happen. There is almost no limit to Duo's imagination, and definitely no limit to Quatre's willingness to see a project through regardless of necessary resources as long as he deems it worthy. If Duo and Quatre had had their way, all five of the pilots would be millionaires many times over – it was only the more prudent Wufei and Heero and Trowa who convinced Quatre not to indulge Duo and let him live off his Preventers pay. Besides, they rightly argued, if he kept the funds he would have put in their names, they would still have any access they wanted through him (and if anything happened to Quatre, Heero could hack the bank accounts directly), but it would be harder for any enemies to track them. Faced with such logic, Quatre had agreed.

But when Duo made an off-the-cuff comment about his life on the streets of L2, Quatre could not be swayed from the idea it generated. Of course, none of his friends would have wanted to talk him out of it. Even if they'd known about it.

Which is why, when Quatre invited the others on "not a mission, not exactly, well, you'll see," they were willing to trust him even if they had no idea what to expect. Quatre was a master manipulator, though he rarely used the talent on his friends. Prevaricating on Quatre's part signaled nervousness, not danger or uncertainty. (Unless he were really playing a game of the mind with them, in which case it was all hopeless anyway.)

So, one Saturday morning, four once-Gundam pilots found themselves in a limo driven by Rashid through the poorest area of L2. Quatre had gone on ahead, and had, as a parting shot, advised them to "dress for an outing, not a fight," which meant the four were not wearing their Preventers gear, but rather their most familiar civilian clothing. They were all armed, but that was a matter of course.

"Here you are!" Rashid said cheerfully, looking back at them as he came to a stop. "I hope you know how much this means to Master Quatre."

"No, we really don't," Heero practically grumbled. For once, he hadn't been able to hack the secrets out of Quatre's laptop, and he had been peeved ever since.

"Oh. Well, go on and see. It's starting already!"

Exchanging glances, the four young men piled out of the limo and looked around.

"Oh my god," Duo whispered before his throat closed up completely.

There was a press-conference happening in front of them, with Quatre front and center, looking every bit the corporate prince he was. Lights popped around him and he was making some kind of speech, but the words never reached Duo.

Behind the podium set up for the conference, a beautiful new building stood, practically shining in the dingy light of the L2 slum. It was several stories tall, built with broad windows all open to the breeze, and a garden was laid out in front. Near the roof of the building, a sign proudly declared "Maxwell Orphanage."

And connected by a walkway that was lined with flowers was the church Duo remembered so well, completely rebuilt, cleaner and more perfect than the original had ever been.

Duo stared, his mouth open and his eyes wide and too bright. Heero and Trowa both fought to keep their expressions neutral, too, both feeling that they might not have ever found their way into war had such a place been offered to them as children. Wufei was smiling slightly – this was an honorable and just use of the Winner fortune and he was very, very pleased to see it.

As Quatre finished his speech and the clapping began, a priest and a nun stepped forward to answer questions – obviously it was they who had been granted stewardship. But Quatre slipped from the reviewing stand and made his way to his friends.

"Do…you like it?" he asked, fidgeting as he never would before strangers. "I found the original blueprints for the church and had it rebuilt exactly except with a lot more safety in mind – better, sturdier materials, that kind of thing. The orphanage itself should house at least a few hundred children, and we're about halfway finished with building a school on the other side so they will get a real education as well as a home and…"

He seemed so worried, trailing off at the look on Duo's face, that Duo's resolve broke. And Shinigami, bringer of death, hellion of L2, threw his arms around his best friend and held him with all his strength, sobbing against his shoulder without a sound.

Quatre's arms came up to hold him, and he understood all of what Duo could not say. Understood that this gift was the healing of a wound that had plagued Duo from long before he had ever become Pilot 02. He let his friend cry, sensing the warmness and near-overflow of the emotions of Heero and Trowa and even Wufei around them as well.

And after a few minutes, when Duo had calmed himself, he met his gaze.

"I'm only sorry I didn't think to do it sooner," Quatre said softly. "But it does come with a price."

"_Anything_," Duo managed.

"There's already about twenty kids settling in now. The adults I hired are good, the best really, and they'll help them a lot. But the kids are going to need someone to talk to who really understands what they've been through. They're going to need a big brother, someone to show them how to live in a world away from what they've known, and how to teach new kids the same thing when the place starts filling up."

"Cat, you've got it," Duo swallowed the rest of his tears and grinned, looking at the other three. "And you guys will regret it if you don't come, too. I am not a one-pilot jungle-gym!"

"Of course we will," Heero said solidly.

And so the Maxwell Orphanage (connected to and run by the Maxwell Church and the Maxwell School) acquired five champions. The kids never knew much about where their "big brothers" Duo and Trowa and Heero and Wufei came from, and they learned to see Quatre as more than just the benefactor who had built their home, but they certainly saw a lot of them. Duo was around practically every week he could get away from Preventers, making friends and just being there as one who had gone through it all himself, leading by the example of a life made from nothing. Heero and Trowa often accompanied him, and the kids learned quickly that the silent pair had never really been children and so they delighted in teaching them children's games and children's ways as they discovered them for themselves. Wufei, strict but kind, was busier with Preventers but still made time to watch over the more frightened ones and give them a reassuring strength until they found their own. And whenever everything else allowed, Quatre, whom they came to call "Cat" because Duo did, was there with his gentle and loving heart that listened to each and every child no matter how trivial their fears.

The Gundams had fought for peace, but Quatre had heard Duo's wish, the wish they all shared, really, to do more than prevent war. They wanted to fix what was broken. They wanted to give others what they themselves had never known.

Together, they finally had that chance.


	8. Medicine and Modified Metabolism

This is nice timing, since I've been sick and out of it all week. I wrote this way before I was sick, though. Some of the insanity here is mine, and some is borrowed from other sources – credits at the end.

Enjoy!

* * *

There was definitely a flaw in this plan.

Heero gripped the edge of the counter and braced his arms, refusing to let the elbows wobble no matter how much they wanted to. _Elbows don't dance. They don't even march._

He would have slapped himself if he could have trusted himself to let go and remain standing. Instead he attempted to blank out his mind, force it into quiet submission where it would STOP whatever it was trying to do.

A moment of silence.

_There are too many penguins eating lunch. I'm obviously made of fish._

"_Kuso_!"

Okay. Stillness and silence had failed. Heero began mechanically naming the types of mobile suits.

"Leo. Aries. Taurus. Apple juice. Cheddar cheese broke my van in pieces." He stopped before another word passed his lips. Heero might not be able to prevent the randomness, but he could certainly recognize it after a moment.

Only one option left. Hands shaking, he reached for his phone. His vision was blurring and staying upright was about as useful as playing with Doctor J's feet in a fruit basket. His fingers touched a button and he pressed it on instinct.

The frequency connected and a voice that sound like a panda came on. "Zero One? Zero One, are you all right?"

"I have a sheep doing roofing over at my house," he managed. "I smell. The raisin got into my brain."

"Oooookay, why don't I just come over then?" replied the panda. "With help. Lots of help."

"Watch me dance a hologram."

Heero felt the phone drop, but that was all right. The ninjas would catch it. A whole bunch of birds were trapped in the ceiling, and the tadpoles were hatching. He could watch over them until the panda finished eating. It was dark and pandas liked the dark. Or was that bats? Wizards?

Well somebody liked the dark, which was good, because it was getting really dark…

Completely later, Heero woke slowly, feeling oddly comfortable and rested. He wasn't sure he could remember feeling so entirely at ease and relaxed. He realized his eyes had slipped open and he was blinking in pale light. Awareness came slowly, and he reveled in the luxury of such comfort.

Until he remembered exactly _why_ he had never let himself be so relaxed.

Soldier. Assassin. Gundam pilot. Preventers agent. Danger around any corner. Right.

Heero's mind snapped to attention to take in the situation around him. At once he realized he was in his own bed, under a pile of blankets. A real pile. In fact, Heero was certain he didn't even own this many blankets. Where had they all come from?

"Heero? How are you?" came a soft voice.

He started to whip his head around but it made the room spin a little. He felt a weight settle on the bed beside him.

"It's Quatre, Heero. You're secure. I promise."

Those words allowed Heero to bring his screaming instincts back under control and he let his eyes close until the sense of spinning stopped. Reopening them, he now saw Quatre, blond hair dusky in the low light, sitting beside him. But not bending over him – the Arab knew Heero hated to feel crowded.

"What…happened?" His tongue suddenly felt exactly like a ball of feathers, and about as responsive.

"Approximately twenty hours ago, you signaled that you were in distress," Quatre answered evenly. "Duo picked up the emergency transmission first and alerted the rest of us that you seemed to be…compromised. When we got here, you were…not quite yourself."

"Quatre," Heero interrupted, "don't be political with me."

"You were out of your mind," Quatre sighed, resigned. "You also had a nasty wound to the stomach and a concussion. We concluded you had been injured on your recent solo mission and attempted to care for it yourself. But the wound got infected, and when you added the concussion to whatever you took to deal with it to your altered biochemistry, it had a very potent impact on your rationality."

"I remember the mission," Heero said haltingly. "And I remember coming back here and trying to treat my symptoms and…then it becomes more unclear."

"I'd imagine so," Quatre said with a wry smile. "Anyway, we called Sally but she said your system would probably purge the imbalance if we gave it time and handled the infection, so we've been keeping an eye on you. I sent the others home to sleep a few hours ago."

"Did I hurt anyone?" Heero had to ask, and hated that he did.

"No," Quatre reassured him quickly. "No, you were fairly talkative, but not violent at all. Now that you're coherent again, you should just need a few days of rest to finish healing and you'll be fine."

He rose with a gentle smile and Heero couldn't help but relax in return. He wondered what it would have been like to have had that kind of warmth and caring to watch over him as a child. He was grateful for it now beyond words. But he knew Quatre, an empath, could tell.

A day or two later, as he became much more mobile and much less helpless, he received a visit from Trowa, who handed over a data disc with a tiny smirk.

"I stole it from Duo. You owe me," was all he would say.

And when Heero viewed the disc, he understood. The footage was obviously shot on Duo's phone, and his ringing voice was clear.

"Hee-chan! Over here!" his voice was almost lost in the giggling.

"The jungle of squirrels wants your hair," Heero saw himself say completely seriously to Duo, eyes almost brown with whatever was in his system. "They'll build nests in the colonies and throw stars at the moon. Did you water the spaceport? I need to install the pink hangars for the rodeo."

"Maxwell, put that away and leave the man what he has left of his dignity," Wufei grumbled. "Stop being a menace."

"I'm going to roast you alive, you giant mushy mushroom friend," Heero said to Wufei absently.

The camera shook as Duo doubled over in laughter. There was the beginnings of a commotion as Quatre and Trowa apparently attempted to talk Heero into uncurling from around the leg of a table so they could put him to bed, but Heero cut off the vid feed before he could see anything else.

He stood and moved to his med kit, which was in a state of disarray from his fevered searchings. With a calm, business-like serenity, Heero purged every single vial of pills except the most basic that he knew did not impact his physiology in any unpredictable ways. Then he wrote in permanent ink on the lid of the case.

"If there is any risk of concussion or infection, call Quatre or face the reality of providing Duo with unimaginable blackmail materials and owing Trowa another favor."

* * *

Credits/Author's notes:

A few of these lines are borrowed from DJO's "Happy in Paraguay" video on YouTube. And there might be a shoutout to flawedamythyst's "The Elephant in the Room" series. If you like Sherlock, take a look.

Thanks to both for the crazy inspiration that led to this!


	9. Wishes Granted

It's short, I know. I'm sorry. I hope it makes you smile, though!

Enjoy!

* * *

Five young men stared at the stars.

When they had decided to take a break from all their Preventers obligations and drag Quatre from WEI as well, they hadn't gone halfway. No one on earth or the colonies even knew where to begin looking for them. And if someone had known to head to the southern continent, it was a vast, arid land with hours of distance between even the smallest towns which the ex-pilots had traveled like shadows and ghosts, unnoticed and anonymous. Now, deep in the outback, lying on rocky ground, the sounds of the night around them, the five stared at the night sky with new eyes.

"I wish we could stay out here forever," Duo breathed out easily.

"Granted," Wufei answered, "but you're turned to stone." Then he huffed and picked up the pattern. It was a well-known game they'd started on long trips to keep themselves awake; they found it oddly entertaining sometimes. "I wish everyone could see this sky the way we do."

"Granted," Trowa smiled, "but then they would all be here and we wouldn't have any quiet. I wish we could see the stars this way from the colonies. They look colder from out in space."

"Granted," Heero took a turn, "but we'll have to do it by space-walking. I wish we had more time to relax."

"Granted," Quatre giggled, "but then Preventers will be operated by those new recruits who couldn't hack their way out of maintenance shed."

Everybody groaned and Duo smacked him. "Ew! Cat, don't even say that! I wish we had a pizza!"

"Granted," Wufei returned, "but it arrives by _pink limo_." There was an audible shudder in his words. "I wish the colonies would think of us a little more fondly."

"Granted," Trowa said softly, "but then they would know our names. I wish we had met under different circumstances."

"Granted," Heero put in seriously, "but then we would not be what we are. I wish we could be sure we could stay together like this for—" he stopped and swallowed against the sudden tension. It was too dear a wish to risk saying aloud.

"Granted." Quatre's voice was warm and certain, and somehow the fact that he believed it so much eased the uncertainty that had blossomed in the space between them in the dark.

"Cat, what about your wish?" Duo asked. "You didn't make one either time."

"I know," Quatre smiled and they could hear it in the warm dark, "because right now I've got everything I want."


	10. Run and Hide

I thought for a while about splitting this into two, but decided to let it stand. There's kind of a concept within a concept here, but I think it's better to keep them entwined.

Enjoy!

* * *

"I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie."

It was Duo's motto, and, as his friends had cause to point out to him many times, was applicable to effectively every part of his life. Duo didn't just run when outgunned; he also ran his mouth, ran out of socks, ran a Gundam-only poker game, and ran for office (but only once, and it was on L3, and nobody talks about the debate where he made the moderator laugh until coffee came out of her nose).

The lying thing was a little more complex. Duo did tend to evade ever saying anything blatantly untrue, but his definition of "true" was a little…fuzzy. On this, Duo and Quatre understood one another uncannily well. For Quatre, the words he spoke might or might not be reflective of the total reality, but they weren't often wholly true or false (except when on a mission, when all bets were off and the Arab would lie with a cheerful heart to protect the others). With Duo, a straight question was more likely to get no answer at all or a joke so outrageous it couldn't possibly true – except that sometimes it was.

Hiding, though, _that_ was Duo's real specialty.

Hiding in plain sight, hiding his emotions, hiding out from paperwork and responsibility, hiding a multitude sins under his smile, hiding the keys to the jeep. Duo could hide a mobile suit in a public parking lot and no one would see it. He could hide his fears under so much laughter almost no one could guess at it. He liked to boast that he could steal a colony and hide it under his bed, and his friends just shook their heads but they didn't question him. If he set his mind to it, Duo could hide anything.

But his favorite hiding place ever was not under his bed, or deep in his smile, or in Wufei's pocket or Quatre's briefcase or Trowa's knapsack or Heero's laptop (though that last one, when he'd concealed that surprise with the picture and the pink frosting, that was one of his true triumphs).

Duo's best, favorite hiding place was his hair.

This was something all the Gundams had learned quickly – first, that most of his supplies lived somewhere in that massive braid, and secondly, never ever to touch it without permission. Even unconscious and half-dead, Duo tended to take it poorly when he felt someone pulling on the things he embedded in his hair. In downtime, between missions, his friends might tug the braid playfully or, in Wufei's case, as an admonition, but they never touched it when they knew he had stocked it like a second weapons locker.

At the base of the braid, where it was narrow and accessible, he tended to keep a sharp blade. In close combat, Duo could whip his head around and slash an enemy from behind with just that, and even if it lacked the force to kill, it was usually a very big surprise. Next up the braid was his set of lock-picks, multi-tools, and sometimes a very small flashlight. Then there was another sharp blade, this one oriented where Duo could get at it with his hands behind his back, his elbows or, one memorable evening, with a shoulder-blade and his foot up behind him. As the braid grew thicker, Duo had several small packets of explosive putty, carefully separated and wrapped (or his hair would get all gooey). Near his neck would be a spare clip for his firearm unless the caliber was truly ridiculous.

But it was the single tiny item at the base of his skull, woven into the very beginning of the braid, that Duo valued the most.

Everything else in that long plait of hair was there for a purpose, usually to kill somebody or otherwise cope with a dangerous situation. Everything else in his arsenal was meant to keep him alive, keep his friends alive, and complete his mission. Duo was truly Shinigami, even his braid dedicated to the cause of death. But at the nape of his neck, pressed against his spine where it joined his skull, intimate as a caress, a tiny item was always tightly affixed, woven into the braid itself and near invisible.

From the time his hair had been long enough to conceal anything, it had always been a key.

For many years he had carried a key to the Maxwell Church, even after its burning, to remind himself of what he had lost. During the Eve wars, he had replaced that key with the key that had originally led to the storehouse for his Gundam, his new cause and the one true ally he had to protect with all he was. But now, years from war and working besides the four other pilots for Preventers, the key had changed again.

It was not a standard key, but a digital one, highly encrypted with a randomized sequencer and multiple frequencies. And the key itself held a tiny hidden compartment in which there was _another_ key, this one flat and forged of a dark-colored Gundanium and mostly unremarkable.

The digital key was coded to open about thirty different doors – his Preventers office, the various places Quatre had homes where Duo lived regularly no matter where he was in the ESUN, Howard's house on L2, and it could also open any door coded to the ESUN government or WEI. It was his way into his home, his work, his friends, and the people he had sworn to protect. It was everything that mattered, almost.

The Gundanium key was more than that. It wasn't, technically, a key at all. Well, maybe that wasn't true – Quatre had had it made, so, knowing him, the key really would open something somewhere.

More importantly, it was a message.

"I had these produced," Quatre had said one quiet evening as the five of them stared at the fire in the hearth on a cold night after a day of deadly work. "I realized there are two times we may need to communicate and no other method will do. Take them," he'd handed them out, "and keep them with you always. If you ever leave it behind, on a mission, in your office, in the street, whatever, that will be the signal that you are going in deep or against your will and we should follow you. And we will," his eyes had been fierce, "to the ends of space if necessary, until you take your key back."

"But," Quatre had turned over the one in his own hands, a slightly golden key where Trowa had red, Wufei had white, and Heero had green, "if you ever send this key to me in an envelope with nothing else, not even a note, I will know that you are walking away. Send me the key and I will never look for you again, and I'll cover your trail with everything I can throw at it."

He'd looked up sadly then, eyes fantastically old and weary.

"There's lots of reasons one of us might want to disappear intentionally. Maybe it becomes too much trying to live in the world. Maybe you can't deal with the rest of us anymore. Maybe you're changing sides. It doesn't matter. I cannot ever disappear – I'm too well-known and I have too many responsibilities. But you all deserve the freedom to turn your backs and vanish. I won't ask any questions. I won't blame you. I'll cover your retreat and keep your secret for as long as I live. I owe you all at least that much."

Having an out, knowing that he could escape any time he wanted and Quatre Raberba Winner would protect him, it was the most reassuring thing Duo had ever been told. He privately believed that the Gundanium key, impenetrable to any kind of scan, might also hold a beacon by which Quatre could track him down in an emergency, but he wasn't sure. It wasn't like Quatre didn't have a hundred other ways to find people he wanted found.

But because Duo had this key, both to summon the others and to drive them away forever, he was safe as he hadn't been in his whole life. Without a word he could ask for help or tell them all to leave him alone and he knew without a doubt that either message would be received and respected.

So he hid it at the base of his braid, close to his head where he could feel its weight every moment of the day. If a mission ever went so far south it worked loose, that would send the right message. And otherwise, that certainty of his freedom, that he could run and hide and never be found without ever having to lie to the only people who mattered, he kept that symbol close and hidden too.

When he looked at it the right way, Duo knew all of his hiding was really just another way of not telling a lie by running, and it suited him just fine.

Lucky for him, it suited the four people he tended to run towards just fine, too.


	11. Dangerous Speeds

I tried writing this differently a few times and never liked it. So we get this vignette instead. Maybe someday I'll go back and write it out, but for now I'm finally satisfied.

Enjoy!

* * *

The problem of five highly-trained, physically and mentally enhanced super soldiers is that they could pretty much break any rules they want with the right motivation, time and maybe equipment (but maybe not). Even laws of physics and gravity if they put their minds to it. Worse than that, all five had become, to some extent, adrenaline junkies. If they weren't given regular opportunities to do truly impossible things and achieve superhuman feats, they started looking for chances in the worst possible places.

Heero took to even-more-ridiculous-than-usual solo missions that should have killed him. Duo taunted terrorists and whack-jobs from increasingly disadvantageous positions. Trowa infiltrated deeper and deeper, treading ever closer to breaking his cover. Quatre concocted more and more ambitious plans that could have backfired on him disastrously. Wufei began challenging _everybody_ to duels. The world held no challenges, so the five of them went looking for them instead, but it was apparent to them all that one day one of those challenges would go too far.

So someone, anonymously, issued a different kind of challenge.

The letters were hand-dropped in their Preventers mailboxes. They contained certain codewords that meant either someone had effectively replaced one of the five former Gundam pilots, or else one of them was choosing to keep his name out of it. In essence, it was a printed invitation to a stretch of uninhabited, un-debris-clogged space where five new-model space-jets would be waiting, begging to find out how fast they could fly in the hands of the right pilots.

Everyone had suspicions. In fact, everyone blamed Quatre. He was the most logical to arrange such a thing, after all, between his resources and his worry for his friends. But Quatre just smiled serenely and refused to admit to anything. He did, however, make it known to the others that he intended to take the anonymous person up on their invitation, prompting the rest to agree.

So they raced in the blackness of space between satellites, customizing their engines on the spot and fighting one another for dominance.

The next month, another invitation arrived for bikes in the dessert. Then submarines in the Pacific. Then an obstacle course on the top of a skyscraper. Then helicopters through a too-narrow canyon.

There was freedom in speed and competition that all five found bizarrely soothing when there was no threat to life or limb besides what they offered each other. Their constant vigilance over the Earth Sphere United Nation, their ever-watchfulness for the sake of peace, their unending battle against war and terrorism, it grated on the five. But knowing that, for one day a month, all of that would evaporate and leave them only themselves, in the quiet of their minds, pressed to their best selves – it gave them a kind of rest.

After six months of competitions, everyone had won at least once, with Heero coming out ahead twice. And the ex-pilots were less tense, less likely to push towards that knife's edge of unhealthy thrill-seeking. Trowa didn't bother to jump from quite such high heights, because he had to be in top form to be ready for the next race. Duo and Heero did not make such reckless charges into a firefight or they could be at a disadvantage in the upcoming round if they were wounded. Wufei was slightly more careful about keeping his distance from his explosives so as not to gain a concussion in the blast. Quatre did not work himself as much to death at either Preventers or WEI so he would be rested in time for the next challenge. After the first year, they stopped getting hurt on missions altogether. The one time Duo had had a sprained ankle and he had lost the next competition horribly, he spent a month fuming.

Having something to drive them gave them back the self-preservation all five had unlearned long ago.

They couldn't live in the world as it was. It wasn't built for five wild spirits, fueled by so much fire no one mission or one war could capture it all. They had to have their own world with their own rules, rules that let them risk life and limb in peace so they might survive to risk even more in real battle.

The races continued on for many years. Once a month, every month, in a new location, or with new technology, or with new twists. From a cross between a paintball-tournament and a deep-sea diving exercise to jet-pack sky-diving, they discovered new outlets for their energies, their powers, and their exhilaration. And they survived.

Their world was dangerous enough. If not for the races, the challenges, the competitions, it would have been far, far more dangerous for them all. Because they risked their lives, they would survive their missions. A paradox, perhaps. But so were they in every way. They had always been safest in danger, after all.

And only Quatre knew, but never ever told, that it was Wufei who had arranged it all.


	12. Why Gundam Pilots Should Not Write Repor

Sorry about missing last week. I was across the country meeting my 7-week-old nephew and had not only no internet, but no sleep. So no editing. But here you go!

By the way, if any of you are near MN, I'm going to be at CONvergence 2013 next weekend and would love to discuss Gundam Wing and anything else we might share, so send me a PM and we'll hang!

Enjoy!

* * *

Lady Une was a thoroughly patient woman. At least, she tried to be.

In her position, patience was absolutely necessary. And not patience with diplomats, terrorists, the bureaucracy, or the thousands of details that made running an organization like Preventers a genuine terror, even to a veteran of the Eve wars.

No, Lady Une's true exercise in patience, and its most severe test, was her five ex-Gundam agents.

From the moment the five young men had presented themselves to her, stating they were all prepared to work as agents as a team, but would accept no one else in their unit, Lady Une had had many causes to both rejoice and regret. On the one hand, the five of them were virtually unstoppable, utterly capable, fanatically dedicated, and even a two-man team could succeed where any other ten agents would fail.

On the other hand, they obeyed no authority but their own (though they at least pretended to be subordinate to her sometimes), they completed every mission in their own way no matter what she might have preferred, and they were totally unwilling to use their skills to train new agents, so she was left without anyone who could even approach their skills. Which she wouldn't have minded except for the sheer number of times she needed those skills and couldn't have them in more than one place at a time. But then, even if _she_ couldn't order them to split up, the former agent Zero Four could, and she had yet to find herself in a situation he didn't plan a means to succeed in spite of everything.

But their worst failing _by far_ was their report-writing.

After the first three months, Lady Une made their pay contingent upon each of the five submitting a report for each mission. Before that, she had received no reports at all, until, after quite a bit of badgering, one Monday morning she found her desk liberally covered with a pile of paper napkins with what looked like a very skillful chronicle of events drawn as a children's cartoon in Duo's hand. It was, distressingly, an accurate depiction of every one of his missions to date, and utterly impossible to submit to her superiors.

Of course, now she had _five_ of them to contend with.

Une had begun keeping a file on her computer she simply called "What?" and captured in it the most absurd and, frankly, entertaining of the Gundam team report submissions. One singular entry might not be particularly humorous, but in context, they kept her from kicking her computer across the room on bad days.

Mission Report Summary for Operation Code 0987 by Agent Zero One:

_Infiltration of suspected terrorist base successful. After non-lethally incapacitating four suspected terrorists, the team searched the base for weapons. A small altercation between terrorists and Agents Zero Two and Zero Five resulted in a minor explosion, destroying some evidence. Attached is an inventory of what was confiscated, what surveillance shows was destroyed, and speculation as to the purpose of all items. Terrorists were turned over to proper authorities._

Mission Report Summary for Operation Code 0987 by Agent Zero Two:

_So, we got in there and found the baddies and took them down – no sweat. But then Zero Five gets into it with me about whether or not the crate in the corner is hazardous. He says it isn't, I say it is, and the others are off doing something official or having tea or something, I dunno. Zero Five tries to tell me that nobody is able to make that crate blow up and so it shouldn't be classified as a dangerous substance. I just wanted to prove that he was wrong, and the terrorist leader or whoever was laughing so hard I kinda lost track of the charge size by a little. That was a BIG fire, too._

Mission Report Summary for Operation Code 0987 by Agent Zero Three:

_Nothing out of the ordinary. Terrorists apprehended, some damage to the building's structure and nearby vehicles. Agent Zero Five threatened to kill Agent Zero Two. Of note: it was the other way around for once, since normally it's Agent Zero Two we have to worry about dragging out of the fire._

Mission Report Summary for Operation Code 0987 by Agent Zero Four:

_Mission was a partial success. Terrorists were captured and taken into custody with minimal injuries and no casualties. Some weaponry was collected, but some was lost in an unfortunate mishap involving the crate marked in appendix materials as Exhibit J. All members of the team were unharmed and sufficient evidence was collected to ensure prosecution of terrorists. Damage to civilian buildings nearby will be covered by "anonymous private funds" from a concerned supporter. For reference, a footnote should be inserted in all materials covering terrorists who use a bakery business as a front that flour is, indeed, highly combustible under the correct circumstances._

Mission Report Summary for Operation Code 0987 by Agent Zero Five:

_Anything Zero Two has written is inaccurate if it in any way implicates anyone but himself in the incident. Also, clearly the contents of that crate were only flammable when exposed to a __moron__._


	13. Life and Death

This wasn't originally part of the series, but it seemed like it needed to be. Besides, I don't think I've given Wufei and Heero enough screen-time.

Enjoy!

* * *

Once, they had spoken across a deserted hangar bay, understanding so much and so little in a small number of words. It didn't matter – it had never mattered – that they had really only known one another for a few days. It didn't matter that they came at their missions from nearly opposite perspectives.

In the end, where it mattered, Heero and Wufei were the same.

Wufei's heart was quiet and studious, loyal and brave, but resigned to silence; Heero's was fierce and stubborn, focused and deliberate, but untested and immature. Wufei's fights were always brutal and overwhelming, his power a force of pure physics against his opponents; Heero's were calculating and harsh, the slice of cold logic and ice that quenches fire. Wufei hated weakness because he knew himself to be weak; Heero hated failure for the same reason.

The day they came to understand each other was the day they met. The day it _mattered_, that was something else.

Agents Zero One and Zero Five had taken a mission alone together – the other three were on Earth, Quatre on WEI business and the other two watching his back. The pair had shoot-to-kill orders against a rogue military squadron that had taken up arms and barricaded themselves inside a small science station orbiting L3. A full Preventers team was already on the way, and the advance force had positioned themselves to trade fire with the terrorists, but Zero One and Zero Five were tasked with sneaking in and shutting down the base, and as many as its inhabitants as possible, from a rear weak-point.

The pair of them went about the mission with efficient stoicism. Neither flinched as they took lives rather than see the other killed, neither hesitated as they made their way through the station, dropping enemies as they cleared room after room. Until they reached the communications center, that is. The room was critical to the mission, as it housed many of the visual and audio equipment their enemies were using to defend against the Preventers agents outside. Zero One and Zero Five had to shut down the computers or many agents would die.

What all their careful mission-planning had not anticipated, however, was the inhabitants of the room.

When Heero and Wufei unlocked the door and stormed in, weapons drawn, the very last sight either could have expected was the pair of children sitting at the controls. The children turned to them with blanked, empty expressions, absolutely alien on their young faces; they could not have been more than six or seven years old. Wufei and Heero stopped just inside the door, simultaneously frozen.

"What are you doing here?" Wufei found his voice first.

"Helping," replied the little boy monotonously. "Pushing the button when it blinks red."

"Why?" Heero put in.

"Because we'll die," the girl beside him said. "See?" She shifted very slightly in her seat, and the two young men at once identified the heavy vests the children wore as explosive-laden bombs. A quick glance told both pilots that the vests had been rigged to the computer terminals themselves. That they would explode if regular action was not taken on the computers.

"What are your orders?" Heero asked.

"When the button blinks red," the boy said, turning back to the panel, "we push it. And when this other one pinpoints a location, we fire on it."

Wufei moved to look at the controls and felt rage and sickness permeate his stomach. He might have vomited if he hadn't been so, so angry. What the boy pointed to was what Preventers had assumed was an automated defense net of lasers.

The children were shooting at Preventers agents, and killing them.

Heero moved to Wufei's side and his blazing blue eyes met infuriated black ones. They passed a long moment in silence. Then, Heero knelt between the two children's chairs, looking at them carefully. When he spoke, it was not in the tone of Agent Zero One, but the Heero Yuy who had only last week set a cool cloth on Quatre's forehead when the blond was suffering a migraine, the Heero Yuy who lost a tickle-fight to Duo.

"What do you want?" he asked them softly. "Do you want to keep fighting? Or do you want to stop?"

Wufei held his breath. These were _children_. They should _not_ be fighting. But another part of him understood Heero's point. Even as children, they could choose for themselves. What they said next would determine if they were hostages or enemies. And even if the courts would rule them too young to answer for their crimes, if those crimes were willfully committed, someday they would be here again. Heero wanted to know if he was going to look into the face of a terrorist in ten years and see the same eyes looking back at him.

The two exchanged glances. Wufei realized they must be siblings, twins if he was to guess. The girl in particular reminded him of Meiran with her long, glossy dark hair. As if instinctively, the girl and boy reached out to clasp hands. It was the girl who spoke in a voice that trembled with fear.

"Our mom is dead. We don't want to die."

"If we could free you so that you would be safe," Wufei moved to lean over where Heero knelt, bending so he could look them both in the eye, "would you want to stay and fight?"

"Yes," they both whispered against tears.

Heero and Wufei nodded in tandem. Wufei expected Heero would reach for the bombs to defuse them, but instead he rose. "I'll alert Une," he said.

Wufei didn't know what was in Zero One's mind, but he could clearly see a memory racing across the eyes that wouldn't meet his own, a memory of an explosion and a death that he did not want to repeat. Wufei nodded in acceptance – this would be his burden to bear, then.

"Do not move," he said to the pair of them. "I will free you, but you must be still and quiet."

He felt his heart hitch at the silent tears that ran down their cheeks, but they nodded and simply held onto one another as he moved around them, delicately examining wires and fuses. After a few moments, the girl stifled a gasp, and he looked.

The red button was blinking, and the targeting program had identified a Preventers target.

Before either child could move, Heero was there, firing the laser and pushing the glowing indicator button. He also held a communicator to his mouth, speaking rapidly. "Discharge in five seconds. Tell Agent Water to move forty-six degrees to her left to evade. Clear quadrant two or that will be the next target."

Wufei returned to his task, aware that the pair of children had relaxed marginally at no longer being responsible for the controls. He wondered if they knew what they had been doing, how many lives they had endangered, and expected with sickness that they did.

Heero had to fire at his own allies twice more before Wufei managed to extricate both children from their restraints and vests. The moment they were free, he found himself reaching to pull the girl into his arms. Beside him, Heero had lifted the boy and held him tightly against his chest.

Wordlessly, they retreated to the doorway, where Heero handed the boy to Wufei, who carried them around the corner and down the corridor away from the control room, while Agent Zero One, detonated the already-present explosives. He joined them after the explosion shook the entire station, face impassive but not unreadable.

"Here," he held out his arms and the boy crawled across Wufei's shoulders to set himself in Heero's grasp. The children traded another look of fear and uncertainty before turning to them with identical lost expressions.

"We still have a job to do, Zero One," Wufei found himself saying.

"No," Heero's voice was sharp and solid. "We have a more important mission now."

Wufei looked at the boy, fingers curled tightly into Heero's Preventers jacket. He looked at where the tiny girl had buried her face on his shoulder and he could feel her breath on his neck. The station was still full of terrorists, and Preventers was counting on them to disable it from the rear, but if they moved forward, these children would be in danger.

Wufei found himself smiling. It was not a decision he might have made a year ago, and not one he would have expected the Perfect Soldier to make, and it gave him hope for the both of them that they made it now.

"Agreed."

Heero contacted Une and told her something that kept her from shouting at either of them over the comms, but the specifics didn't matter to Wufei. The only thing he cared about was holding the little girl carefully, moving silently, and ensuring any time he rounded a blind corner that no part of the child was vulnerable before he had cleared it.

They reached their shuttle with no obstacles and took off, heading away from the station without a second thought. Wufei settled in to pilot, Heero taking both children to seats where he could strap them in together. As soon as they were under the shock blanket he found for them, they fell asleep. Heero did not move from his self-appointed position watching over them, but he did call up to Wufei when he was certain the children were deeply asleep.

"You abandoned the mission," was all he said.

"So did you," Wufei replied.

"No," and he could hear relief and something real, not the robotic soldier in the voice. "No, we completed it."

Wufei closed his eyes for a moment of something strong in his heart. "Yes, I suppose we did."


	14. Routine

Eep! I almost missed the weekend. I'm so sorry! And this one is short, so I'm doubly sorry.

On the other hand, there will be, at the end of this series, a very fun AU starring our Gundam team, so make sure you keep an eye out! My plan is to keep updating SOMETHING every weekend, so you shouldn't have too many gaps for a while!

Enjoy!

* * *

One thing upon which Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei could always agree was the value of doing things in their proper order. For all Duo's freewheeling personality and Quatre's tendency to tie things in knots and Trowa's casual fluidity, all of them had been trained as mechanics, soldiers, terrorists, infiltrators, and a variety of other such roles. The universal among them all was that there was always a checklist, a way in which to get a job done correctly.

This tended to leak elsewhere in their lives.

Just as Heero would never have launched in a mobile suit without a methodical check of its systems a few years prior, or Duo would not have infiltrated a base without proper preparation during the war (if he could help it), Trowa never prepared a meal without a step-by-step recipe before him, Quatre scheduled his days to within 10 minutes of precision, and Wufei carefully regulated all supplies from ammunition to toilet paper.

But it wasn't just the little things. The longer they lived and worked as a team, the more they began to use their habits to control, well, everything. It was comforting, an assurance that _they_ were still in control because they could impose order where none might be evident.

And so, after the first year of Preventers missions together, they settled into an unbreakable routine.

It didn't matter if the mission had included only one of them or all five. Often missions involved splitting up to accomplish separate goals, and they might not reunite until hours later at their safehouse or whichever dwelling of Quatre's they were using as a base. Until the moment each one had left Preventers or the local authorities or whatever served as the endpoint of the mission, until they had returned to their safe territory, they were still agents, and even if they met in the hallway or shared a ride home, no one let down their guard.

But once they were behind walls and doors deemed safe, once they were together, all five of them, then it changed.

First part of the routine – unloading the gear. Boots and jackets and uniforms, certainly, but also the arsenal each carried; guns, knives, explosives, all of it would be packed meticulously away in the cases they kept to store their supplies. This was done in silence, and no one moved on until everyone had unburdened themselves from the weight of the work.

Second part of the routine – status check. Wufei, no longer Zero Five, would question each of the others in turn about any injuries, lingering doubts, or something that bothered them from the mission. It was as much about physical well-being as emotional, and also about security. If someone had taken an injury, it would be tended. If someone had cause to suspect they might have been spotted, they laid out the specifics to look for potential security threats later. If someone didn't like the operation or the orders behind it in the light of what they had seen during the mission, they brought it up. Any action that needed to be taken was taken swiftly, from bandaging wounds to making private notes to look into the situation more closely. But that would come later.

Third part of the routine – returning to self. Beyond just taking showers and changing out of the sweat- and blood-stained clothing, this was about drawing a firm line between missions and life. They had such a tenuous grasp of living outside of being Gundam pilots, they needed a careful transition to make it feel real. Wufei, after washing and changing, always ran through a kata or two to recenter himself, and often the others would join him. Quatre would check his messages from WEI. Trowa would stretch his body as though warming up for a show. Heero would assess the safe house and ensure it was totally secure. And Duo prepared for the next phase.

Fourth part of the routine – replenish and refuel. As the others worked the kinks out of their psyches after a mission, Duo took it upon himself to cook. While they might share the chores before a mission, afterwards it was always Duo, and it was _always_ pancakes, after a tradition started in their earliest days together. He made stacks and stacks of them, more than any normal person could imagine they would want to eat. But the food had to last for a while, and it had to feed five young men with highly unusual metabolisms. When his cooking was done, everyone else would leave off what they had been doing and gather to eat together. And no one could laugh yet, but they might have relearned to smile around the table as they shared syrup and butter and strawberries.

Fifth part of the routine – true downtime. Stomachs full and bodies at last relaxing, the five would settle on the couches and chairs of wherever they were and engage in the most normal of activities – arguing over a vid to watch. Without discussion they avoided films that reminded them too much of war and missions, opting instead for historical dramas, comedies, classics, even the odd romance if they were in the mood. Everyone got one vote, and when a vid was decided they would lounge about and watch it, sometimes in silence, sometimes making snide commentary. Wired and energized, they could pass an entire night watching films together, one after the next, picking at the remaining pancakes for hours.

Sixth part of the routine – rest. It hadn't originally been planned, but it kept happening so they simply adjusted their assumptions to include it. No matter how tired, no one ever moved off to their separate beds after a mission. The togetherness, the assurance that they were safe and whole after their work was too important to let go. The same bond that had them share a living space when they all could have easily afforded their own places drew them together still. And so they simply packed extra blankets and pillows around the couches and chairs and, as each dropped off in the middle of a vid, made their bed where they sat. By dawn, there would be five slumbering young men, often tangled together on the couch or floor, safe because they were _together_.

When people asked them how they could see such violence as Preventers agents, how they handled it, all five just smiled and said they had "learned to cope." Because they had. They drew lines around their lives, put the missions in one box, life on the other side, and used each other and their own little rules as the guide in-between.


	15. Protector

Time for some of the bad-assery we're used to from these boys. And a slightly longer adventure.

Enjoy!

* * *

Heero paced restlessly. He didn't know he was doing it – if he had noticed, he would immediately have drawn himself completely still as was the way of the Perfect Soldier instead of venting his frustration like any first-mission rookie. But he had been waiting for Quatre for three hours, and the tiny anteroom in which he was permitted to wait was windowless, near devoid of furniture, and two floors down from where Quatre's meeting was being held.

It was, in short, not a good strategic position.

Heero's internal clock alerted him moments before his watch beeped that the time to check in had come. It was one of the conditions of his agreeing to this idiotic meeting – Quatre would check in with him regularly or, so help him, Heero would come to find him. Even Quatre had agreed that might be wise, given that he was negotiating the takeover of a major rival corporation, one with historical ties to organized crime, and would be promptly removing every single person Preventers confirmed to have participated in criminal activity.

Heero raised his phone and made the call. It rang out.

"_Kuso,_" he swore angrily. Then, as instructed, he called again. Two missed calls was the signal that Quatre needed help.

"This is Quatre," came the familiar voice on the third ring.

"Status?" Heero asked shortly, an uneasy feeling building in his stomach.

"I thought I made it clear I was not to be disturbed," Quatre said, a little distractedly.

Heero felt his eyebrows rise. That was _not_ in any way the plan, and Quatre knew that.

"Just tell me one thing," Heero said quickly.

"Yes, I can answer one brief question," came the response, and now Heero could hear certain layers to his tone that only someone who knew him well would have caught. On top of it all, he sounded calm and collected, but there was a hitch underneath it that spoke to nerves. And yet, it wasn't the kind of nerves that Quatre usually expressed. The ex-pilot of Sandrock simply did not experience fear in the boardroom, no matter what the business deal.

But under all that was a different tone, one only four other people alive might catch – the slightest smoothness and rapidity of speech that only came out when Quatre were manipulating the situation, a holdover from ZERO's influence. Which meant he was _pretending_ to be afraid, and therefore pretending to be pretending to be calm.

Heero's patience shattered and he practically growled, "Do I need to come in hot?"

"Yes, I think that would be very appropriate for the occasion. Please set it up with my assistant. I have a guest waiting. Thank you." And the line cut out.

Heero reached into his pocket where there was another communicator, so much more than just a phone, and without even drawing it out he keyed a code and flipped a switch. "Set it up with my assistant" could only mean Quatre wanted him to alert the others.

That done, Heero drew his gun and, visualizing the entire layout of the building, which he had of course memorized beforehand, left his stuffy anteroom to get upstairs where his friend was waiting.

Heero didn't bother to eliminate targets on his way up – starting a fight in the hallways could endanger Quatre; instead, he needed to ensure Quatre's safety first and then all bets were off. A buzz from his pocket told him his message had been received, but the others were still some distance away. By the time they arrived, either he would have succeeded, or he would have failed and no rescue would matter anymore.

After ducking through the stairwell and ascending the two stories, he peeked into the hallway that led to the large conference room in which Quatre should be. There were four men outside the massive wooden doors, heavily armed.

Heero slipped from the stairwell into a nearby unlocked door which opened into a restroom. It was simple enough to kick a ceiling tile loose and climb into the crawlspace. Within moments he was above the four of them. He drew a second pistol, not his more familiar Glock, but this one armed with a different kind of ammunition.

Four silent shots later and the four guards had crumbled with tranquilizer darts sticking out of the tops of their oblivious heads.

A bang from the room below startled him. It was probably just someone pounding on a tabletop. Probably.

"It had better be," Heero ground his teeth as he dropped back into the hallway, stowing the tranq gun under his jacket against the small of his back and making a last check of the Glock. If he had failed, if he was too late for Quatre, no man or woman would leave the building alive.

Just before he kicked open the door, Heero grabbed his phone and called Quatre once again. The ringing in the room beyond was all the distraction Heero needed.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Heero had kicked in the doors and opened fire. Several men turned to him, drawing weapons, but he had already advanced into the conference room, eliminating the first row of them with incredible speed. He was four steps past the doors when a rough shout arrested him.

"Enough!"

A large, ham-fisted man had put a gun to Quatre's temple. He held the young Arab with thick fingers tangled in the back of his shirt-collar, and Heero could see the silk tie digging deeply into Quatre's throat.

"Toss that over here or Mr Winner will be very sorry," the man ordered. At the slightest nod from Quatre, Heero lowered the weapon. But he noticed the blond's fingers twitch and understood the signal. He lobbed the Glock onto the broad table that dominated the room, close to the man and Quatre.

The man shoved Quatre forward, never letting go of his collar, and grunted "Pick it up and give it to me."

Heero hid his expression as Quatre stumbled forward, his falsified body language screaming that he was locked up with terror – if Duo had been here, he'd have been laughing himself silly at the sight. Quatre's feet almost went out from under him in his shaky haste to comply with the man's orders, even as he had to stretch hard enough to make himself gag to reach the gun where it had landed. The Arab certainly knew how to put on a good show.

Heero took a quick inventory of the room. Besides the ringleader who held Quatre, there were only two others still breathing. Simple.

The moment Quatre's fingers closed on the Glock, both ex-pilots _moved_.

Heero threw himself down and to the side, pulling his tranquilizer gun as he did so. He popped up from behind a chair long enough to hit the two remaining guards or board members or whoever they were. He knew without looking that Quatre was handling the leader.

Quatre had almost sighed with relief when the man shoved him towards the gun. He'd played the role of a frightened captive for the last hour, hoping for this exact outcome. So the moment Heero's Glock found its way into his hand, Quatre, CEO of WEI and media and business darling, became Quatre, leader of the Maganacs and former pilot of Sandrock.

He'd pivoted in place, heedless of the tight grip on his collar and shot a single bullet into the man's underarm, straight through the heart. Death was instantaneous.

As soon as Heero had dropped the other two, he appeared at Quatre's side. The blonde was standing back up – the leader's death hadn't been enough to free him from that unpleasant grip and he'd had his head near torn off when the man went down.

"Status?" he demanded.

"I'm all right," Quatre said breathlessly, and he coughed a bit. Heero frowned darkly at where there was a broad mark on Quatre's throat from the man's strangling grip, and he noted that the pale windpipe looked badly bruised. If the man hadn't been dead already, Heero would have strangled him – slowly – for that.

"Time to leave," was all he said, though.

"Agreed." And with almost serene slowness, Quatre gathered up a few slightly blood-splattered pieces of paper and packed them into his briefcase. "Unless you have a better idea, I do have an extraction plan."

"Of _course_ you do."

"I thought there'd be more of them than this, honestly," Quatre said conversationally as he snapped the briefcase shut. "That's why I came to this meeting without the usual assistants and vice presidents and such. This," he gestured at the seven bodies throughout the room, "is a much less hostile reception than I expected. Fairly low-key, really."

"If this is what you consider 'low-key,' we are going to have to work on your frame of reference," Heero gave him a tiny smile, a mere crack in his composure.

Twenty minutes later, the two of them had engineered an escape from the building which required eliminating only two more guards and a bit of Quatre's fast-talking to convince one poor secretary to lock herself in the bathroom to wait for the Preventers assault that would likely arrive an hour after the nick of time, as usual. As they slipped from the side door and down a steep embankment to the underground parking garage, a nondescript beige van pulled up.

"Oh, man! Did we miss all the fun?" Duo asked, bouncing out the door almost before the van had stopped fully. But no one missed the sharpness of his gaze as it roved over the two, nor how his eyes narrowed dangerously at the clear mark on Quatre's pale throat and the blood droplets marring the white business suit.

"If you like," Heero offered, pushing Quatre into the van and giving a single nod to Wufei, who relaxed fractionally, "you can take the next shift."

"All right!" Duo cheered.

"Don't be so excited," Trowa put in from the driver's seat, looking intensely at Quatre himself as Duo hustled Heero into the van, wary and watchful. "Because the next time he goes out in public is probably going to be to deal with the press on this."

"Last time I stood as bodyguard against the press corp, I had to put my fist through a camera," Wufei added disgustedly.

"It's fair, though," Heero said over Duo's melodramatic and gleeful anticipation. When everyone turned to him (except Trowa, who was now driving them at much higher-than-legal speeds to a secure location), he shrugged. "Quatre Winner protects half the Earth Sphere with what he does as CEO, not to mention Zero Four's watchfulness in Preventers."

Quatre blushed, and the others nodded seriously. After all, what was more important than guarding the guardian of so much peace and hope and power and influence himself?

Especially when they all knew he would protect them right back – every single time.


	16. Sideways Laughter

It's possible that someday these might turn into prompts of their own. We'll have to see. But for now, just let your imagination go where it will. Either way, this one somehow makes me giggle way too much.

Enjoy!

* * *

Even with an outlet for their skills and talents, even with each other to understand and share the burden, even with a world where peace was genuinely possible, the irrepressible nature of the former Gundam pilots found ways to leak. When their scars had retreated and their drive to lose themselves in familiar danger had abated, each of the young men found that simply following the rules and serving the greater good, while all excellent and honorable, was not very fulfilling.

So they each found ways of making things more "interesting" for themselves.

Trowa developed what Duo laughingly called his "secret identity crisis," wherein he would spontaneously decide to infiltrate something – a coffee shop, a law office, even a baseball team one memorable weekend – just to see how long he could go unnoticed in a place he did not belong. He would adopt a name and a persona, acquire the appropriate clothing, and just disappear into the crowd. Trowa became so adept at it that he started getting promotions and even paychecks in some of his infiltrations, being recognized for excellent service and competence when he would have admitted if asked that he had never done a minute's worth of work in any one of the places. But there was just something about his face that made people think he had impressed them.

Just once, Duo went along on one of his "outings." They were booted out of the banking headquarters in under three hours, Duo giggling maniacally while upstairs some poor technician tried to figure out how he had rigged every single printer in the building to simultaneously spit out pages of giant smiley faces.

Quatre had very little downtime, between Preventers and WEI, so he took to what he termed "extreme gaming." While others in his position might have resorted to gambling, Quatre instead programmed a large number of classic games, from chess to card games, board games, and dice games, on his handheld computer. He set the computer at a baseline and then challenged himself to defeat the autoplayer or risk the consequences. The first time he lost at chess, the computer converted every scrap of information on itself from Common to an obscure and extinct Italian dialect. When he lost just before the final round of a poker tournament, it spontaneously changed his network password every hour on the hour so he had to re-hack it while maintaining the poker handuntil he was able to win.

Just once, Trowa decided to play him in _go_, one-on-one. They did very well against one another, but after only a few minutes they started adding a stopclock, a beaker of hydrochloric acid, and a fuse into the mix. The only real casualty in the end was the carpet, and Quatre had never liked that color anyway.

Heero returned to his roots as an adept computer hacker with a vengeance. Banks and governmental systems and corporations were simplicity itself for him to crack, so he turned to much more unusual vaults of information on the internet. On video-sharing sites, Heero developed a way to code a command into a tiny link only the size of a half-pixel, but when clicked, it would lead an unsuspecting user on an elaborate treasure hunt across dozens of sites and systems. On the fifth anniversary of the day Relena Peacecraft became "queen of the world," Heero worked for days so that every single person across the ESUN had their desktops, browsers, even proprietary systems changed to commemorate the date with a pink banner.

Just once, Quatre joined forces with Heero for an _epic_ hacking adventure. They never really told anyone what they had _done_ with all that time and the elaborate plans the others only barely overheard before it was all hidden, but the two smiled mysteriously whenever asked and answered, "maybe someday you'll find out." And those who knew them best knew well enough to fear for civilization itself from their matching grins.

Wufei mostly ignored or endured the pranks and antics of the others, but he had much the same impulse himself, even if he turned it towards what he called more "productive" acts. But "productive" appeared to also mean "heart-attack-inducing" because Wufei's chosen outlet was to test the ESUN or Relena Darlian's personal security and demonstrate all the weaknesses by the most expedient means possible – a mock attack. It drove Lady Une to _fits_ when she would get half-hysterical calls from the ESUN government saying a terrorist had arrived only to hear Chang Wufei's calm voice in the background giving his Preventers authorization code and beginning the lecture on their lax security. During a particularly boring week that spring, he went so far as to sneak into Relena's bedroom to prove that she was ill-protected, only to have the girl herself launch a heavy book at his head even after she recognized him. But all the disapproval in the world couldn't shake Wufei from his simple logic that the peace was not safe while the ESUN's leaders were such easy prey for a determined assailant, and after a few months, even Une gave up arguing.

Just once Heero tried to test Wufei in return, leading to tense game of cat-and-mouse throughout the ESUN presidential palace, each stalking the other, but only Heero aware that his target was friendly. Wufei barely got away without shooting Heero in the arm, and they both had to explain to the housekeeping staff later why the ancient suit of armor in the foyer looked as though it had been a participant in the much more recent war.

Duo was more straightforward in his efforts, leaving the world-changing stuff to the others. Instead, he found new and special ways of causing chaos on a local level, specifically, with the other four former pilots. It took only two days before Heero, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei learned never ever to leave their phones or computers where Duo could find them unsupervised. From changing the message on a voicemail box to "This is that guy, with the stuff, and I do things. If you've got something to say, you better say it in rhyme and stuff or I'm just gonna pretend I didn't hear you 'cause I don't do nothin' straight," to leaving impossibly tiny stink packets embedded in circuitry like very small, annoying bombs (that only ever went off when someone was in the middle of something important, of course), he did nothing to reduce the overall paranoia of his friends, and yet he very much increased their amusement, little as anyone would ever have admitted it.

Just once, Wufei bent that iron spine of his and decided to get in on the action with Duo. By the end of the week, the other three ex-pilots had been listed on 150 dating sites under various aliases, received flowers from dozens of admirers, woken up to vid-phone serenading by basement hacks as well as professional musicians, and had all their clothing replaced with pink tuxedos. Trowa, Heero, and Quatre never forgot and never forgave, and Duo and Wufei laughed themselves silly for _months_.

And just once, the five indulged themselves together as a unit.

Zechs never knew what hit him.


	17. From the Outside Looking In

Okay, guys. This is the last oneshot for a while. Not the last one ever – promise! But I've finished a Gundam Wing story now and I'd like to start posting those chapters for a bit. Look out next weekend for the first chapter of my foray into Gundam-Wing-Meets-Fairytales. I'll let the exact story be a surprise.

But when that story has been posted, if I'm still not yet ready for the big, massive crossover, I'll go back to putting up oneshots to keep the updates coming. Only when Epic Massive Crossover Of Doom is finished will I probably let the GW universe rest for a while or else my brain may explode.

I hope this is an okay place to end things for now. Come back next week for a new adventure in a new land!

Enjoy!

* * *

Two years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation looked at the peace they had grown from such destruction with relief, sorrow, hope, and pride. The road had not been smooth, the work not easy, and yet they had held up their desire for peace over war, had listened to the voices that whispered rather than shouted, and saw before them a future that might not be as tenuous as they had once believed.

Two years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation remembered the five Gundam pilots with a mix of rage and respect. They did not know their names, only their designations, and while many were still angry over their actions, there was no denying that in the end, the Gundams had been agents of peace. It was a peace bought with blood and loss, and the Gundams were still controversial in a way utterly unique to them, but even those who thought on them with bitterness and anger had to admit that the Gundams, for good or ill, had been _magnificent_.

Two years after the wars, those who had known the Gundams personally – people like Relena, Noin, Lady Une, even Zechs – saw not heroes or villains, but victims. They watched the five attempt to navigate a world in which they were true outsiders in every respect. Still so fresh from battle and war and destruction, they saw the scars and pains and burdens carried by those who had killed to spare the unbloodied hands of countless men and women. They respected the Gundams, but they mourned the weights they knew they must carry in secret, known only to themselves.

Two years after the wars, Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei learned to breathe.

Five years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation had made great strides forward in ensuring and enforcing peace throughout mankind. The Mars project had grown by leaps and bounds, and the hope of that new tomorrow and all it might hold fueled the imagination of a whole citizenry, giving them a uniting ideal and goal to drive themselves. The forces that had once divided them did still, and deeply in many cases, but the decision for peace proved stronger than the desire to fracture and the ESUN held the rest together.

Five years after the wars, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation had little cause to change their opinions of the Gundam pilots, though, with distance and time, they saw more and more that those five signature mobile suits had been just as lost and confused as they themselves. The bitterness faded from public thought as days passed without further fighting, and books and editorials and news stories slowly unveiled a conflict wherein five young men, still nameless, gave themselves completely to the cause of peace and freedom for all people. Those who were determined to hate them still did, but those who could look on the Gundams more gently began to find pity and regret amidst their respect.

Five years after the wars, those who knew the Gundam pilots best saw changes in the young men they had once considered lost. The five kept mainly to themselves in the depths of their hearts, but the bits of themselves they began to show to the world were lighter and kinder than anyone had ever hoped. Where they might have expected silence or a solemn nod or a terse phrase, even the most taciturn of the five might offer a small smile. It seemed that the ice prisons in which they had held themselves, away from everyone and safe in their own worlds, had begun to crack, and only those who had always known what they carried inside were not surprised to find great warmth beneath the impassive exterior.

Five years after the wars, Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei learned to trust.

In the years and decades that would come, the people of the Earth Sphere United Nation would strive forward, upholding peace and prosperity even as they expanded farther into space. The Eve wars would be a mark on their memories, but with time and the wise guidance of their leaders, the people resigned their past to the past and began to embrace their collective future. The Gundams were never forgotten, but they became more like legends than actual mobile suits with teenaged pilots. The people saw them as folk heroes, demigods, children of the stars who illustrated human folly and the pain of war with exquisite clarity before leading mankind to a real choice that they could carry onward. The world had changed, the colonies had changed, and even if history remained the same, it became a blemish and a lesson rather than a seed for destruction.

In the years and decades that would come, the people who knew the Gundam pilots best were not disappointed. Some of the five might be more outspoken than others, or more friendly, or less secretive, but all five had found ways of laughing, ways of crying, ways of creating wholeness where none was before. Their friends did not have any idea how the five could stay together, nearly always side-by-side, when they were at heart such very different and independent and stubborn young men, but they did, and it worked. And the world they inhabited when they were alone remained a secret unto themselves, but their friends could see the difference and knew that, just as the Gundams had become the symbol of the war, their pilots were reflecting the process of peace and progress forward in their own hearts.

In the years and decades that would come, together, Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei would learn to live.


End file.
